Friendly safety reminder for those who wander off road

I am sure most of you know, if you wreck you bike on the road, it's going to cost a few hundreds to a few thousands dollars for an ambulance ride and a couple thousands for the ER visit. It's all good because more than likely your insurance company is going to pick up the tap.

But when it comes to taking your 500lbs+ road bike off road, a compound fracture to your femur is going to be lot more likely and a lot more costly.

I work on the ambulance and also the fire department. Recently I had a patient who's a local resident, took his 1200GS through a coal mine on a weekend. He wrecked his bike at high speed ("reportedly" 30mph+) and broke his leg along with hip and abdominal pain. I had to travel more than 30 mins to get to him and the hospital was over an hour and half away. Long story short, we had to call a helicopter for him, which by-the-way cost $20,000 for a helicopter ride and at least $10,000 for a trauma team at the ER.

This patient's injuries looked serious enough to earn him a helicopter ride to the ER, but his injuries was not enough to earn him an overnight stay. His bike insurance denied coverage for his bike and medical bill because his policy doesn't cover off road uses. Thank god his medical insurance paid for the $20,000 helicopter ride but they denied his claim for the ER trauma treatment because he was discharge the same day. Hospital bills was over $10,000 because of the activation of the trauma team. A simple ride on the weekend costed him over $10,000 in medical bills and couple thousands to fix his bike.

Please, if you do take your motorcycle off road:
Check your health insurance and bike insurance coverage;
pack a first aid kit, a simple SAM splint, bangages, and tourniquets may save your life and minimize a lot of pain and suffering;
and most importantly ride within your physical and financial limit. Slow down! If you have a family to feed, a mortage to pay, and can't afford to skip work for a couple days, BE EXTRA CAREFUL.

Finally, if you are that unlucky and get into an accident in the middle of nowhere, BE NICE TO THE PARAMEDIC and don't bitch about how long you have waited for help. We didn't force you to wander into the middle of nowhere and wreck your bike. Oh and we have the best narcotics for pain management, so be nice! haha

Thanks for guys like you who come to the rescue of us riders, even though we do some dumb things sometimes. I also suggest Med-Jet assist for those times you need help in far away places, like South America or such.

It's nice to hear an MC story from the other perspective.
Any experience with locating SPOT users who have had a mishap?

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A buddy went down in NW New Mexico. The locals didn't come for him because he was in a jurisdictional Bermuda Triangle that included an Native American reservation. After a couple of days, a guy following his blog noticed that his Spot didn't move and organized a search. Lesson is this: somebody has to be your advocate and watching your ride plan.

Some of the riders in the local BMW club are members of DAN simply for the accident insurance.

I also suggest Med-Jet assist for those times you need help in far away places, like South America or such.

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Well, almost.

There is a world of difference between the Life Flight type service the OP describes, and MedJet.

Here's the difference:

Life Flight: Helicopter comes to get you wherever your accident occurred, and takes you back to a trauma center. Your condition is serious enough that someone is trying to save your life by getting you to a hospital at all possible haste.

MedJet: MedJet does not come to you where your accident occurred. You already have to be an in-patient at a medical facility, and, moreover, although you may want to come home to your house, you have to have a need for further treatment in another medical facility (normally, this is in or near your hometown). You (or your family) chooses the hospital. It doesn't have to be near your home.

As for "far away places, like South America or such", MedJet will provide service if you're hospitalized more than 150 miles from your primary residence. Once you're stabilized, they'll come and get you and take you to a hospital of choice.

The handy way to think of it is this:

Life Flight collects you in the field at the accident location.

MedJet collects you from a medical facility, and takes you to another medical facility, in a non-emergency status.

Plain and simple.....the best ins. possible.......buy the tracking and have someone follow you every day. If you stop for more than 4 hours during the day when you know it isn't part of your adventure planning, they should know what to do. Buy whatever level of ins. you like.......it is cheap in the big picture!

Even if just a mechanical breakdown, you can benefit from them w being able to watch you in real time. You don't need to use it at all, but if you need it, it's there. Plus it gives your family, if you have one, that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing where you are and you're safe.

Why does that have anything to do with being released the same day? Lots of people receive potentially life threatening injuries that turn out not to be life threatening after checkups.

Do you think the guy will get this coverage on appeal, or is this one of those mystery insurance things and we should do our best to have the hospital keep us there overnight?

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I can't speak for everyone's health insurance, but mine (and I think it's a common policy) does not cover any emergency room services either, unless you are admitted to the hospital. I believe that the purpose is to discourage people from using the ER for ordinary, non-emergency ailments.

I can't speak for everyone's health insurance, but mine (and I think it's a common policy) does not cover any emergency room services either, unless you are admitted to the hospital. I believe that the purpose is to discourage people from using the ER for ordinary, non-emergency ailments.

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Hmmm... I see... so if you fall off the roof, they do cat-scans, xrays, all sorts of evaluations and expensive exams and they find nothing, you're on the hook for all the expenses because they didn't detect any internal damage or bleeding that would keep you in the hospital?

Yea saw a piece on the news last week. Doctors were on,
in a nut shell, doctors order every xray, scan or test they can think of, going way overboard. They don't even think twice about it. Most often ends don't justify the means.

Insurance gets stuck with the bill, so they kick it back.

Doctors do this because...........you guessed it,
douche bag ambulance chasing, money hungry (not that we all aren't), sue anything that moves lawyers. They have no choice.

douche bag ambulance chasing, money hungry (not that we all aren't), sue anything that moves lawyers. They have no choice.

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Don't blame it on the lawyers as if this was a bad thing.

More tests = more certainty. Most doctors want to do those tests to make sure they scan for all possible dangers. Most people also want all those tests to make sure they are fine.

It's really simple: fewer checks = increased chance of overlooking something. It might not be worth the money - if you put a price on people's health and life - but that's what it comes down to.

A local rider here crashed his bike on some local twisties. He got the wind knocked out of him but he was fine. Rest of the day was perfectly fine. He didn't go to the hospital until he started to pass out later that night. Turns out he had internal bleeding, lost lots of blood already, and would probably die by morning. In the US if you show up looking perfectly fine at a hospital, they are more likely to run the tests, cat scans, xrays anyway just to make sure. That's good thing, considering the repercussions.

A question came up regarding an insurance claim for a bike while riding on a forest service road.

Here is the situation: A rider went over a water bar which was much deeper and wider than expected on the far side. The rider came down hard enough for the skid plate to come up and rip out the drain plug dumping the oil. The rider stopped right away so the engine is likely fine internally, except for the fact that the sump is all part of the cast block (1200GS). The oil drain plug is now embedded in the block casting and the sump is cracked.

Does it come down to location of the incident for the insurance company to honor a claim?

There is a world of difference between the Life Flight type service the OP describes, and MedJet.

Here's the difference:

Life Flight: Helicopter comes to get you wherever your accident occurred, and takes you back to a trauma center. Your condition is serious enough that someone is trying to save your life by getting you to a hospital at all possible haste.

MedJet: MedJet does not come to you where your accident occurred. You already have to be an in-patient at a medical facility, and, moreover, although you may want to come home to your house, you have to have a need for further treatment in another medical facility (normally, this is in or near your hometown). You (or your family) chooses the hospital. It doesn't have to be near your home.

As for "far away places, like South America or such", MedJet will provide service if you're hospitalized more than 150 miles from your primary residence. Once you're stabilized, they'll come and get you and take you to a hospital of choice.

The handy way to think of it is this:

Life Flight collects you in the field at the accident location.

MedJet collects you from a medical facility, and takes you to another medical facility, in a non-emergency status.

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To add to tricepilot's excellent summary, I had a bit of a git-off in Montana a couple of years ago. Was able to ride to the hospital - took about 2 hours. Had MedJet and Travel Insurance. Found out the Travel Insurance provided the same Air Medical Evacuation as MedJet. The main criteria for both is that you must be admited to a hospital (being in the Emergency Room is not being admited to the hospital) and there must be a bed available at the hospital you want to go to. In my case (since I live in Canada with our wonderful Gov't run medical system) I had to wait in Montana an extra 3 days until they finally came up with a bed for me at home. Cost the insurance company about $6K extra for my bed while waiting for one at home.